The Sky's a Blackboard
by TheAfterglow
Summary: Sequel/prequel to my WWII Reylo AU, Right When I Arrive. What happens when Ben Solo deploys to the South Pacific from 1943 to 1945. Excerpt: She had been very quiet on the bus ride to Fort Mason, and not showed much emotion until it was nearly time for them to part ways. It had made him feel uneasy, not sure she'd miss him. He wasn't even sure if he wanted her to.
1. May 1943

_May 1943 - Pacific Ocean_

The line of the horizon remained flat and unbroken as far as the naked eye could see. Once the bump that was Hawai'i had receded from sight in the foamy wake of the _Finalizer_ , they had seen nothing for days.

At first they marveled at it. Their world was expanding beyond their wildest dreams. Away, away, away they chugged from the familiar, from the flat green farms they'd grown up on, the crowded cities and tenement houses and makeshift structures on the back of a relative's land.

They stood shoulder to shoulder along the railing of the deck, pointing at nothing and claiming they saw their destination, eager to be the first one at something. The thrum of the ship's engines was a repetitive chorus, at times soothing and other times grating, a constant frequency that reminded them of the unknown they were headed towards.

It reminded Ben of visiting the great dunes as a little boy, how eagerly he struggled up to the top, annoyed at the slow pace his parents and uncle maintained going up the shifting sand. Only when he reached it did he realize there were endless dunes. The lake shimmered in the distance like a mirage of an oasis, tantalizing him with every new peak, but getting further and further out of reach as his little legs had tired to the point his father was forced to carry him. By the time they'd reached the shoreline to spread out their blanket, he'd been so exhausted he'd laid down and cried fat baby tears. His father had tried his best to hide his look of disgust, but he could tell he was a disappointment. He recalled his mother gathering him into her lap while his father and Uncle Luke had strolled down the shoreline together, humming a tune as she read to herself.

She was always reading. Her books were not meant for children, but she read them to him anyway.

He wondered what she was doing now. It had been several months since they had spoken. After their final argument, he had retreated to his attic workspace and moved his piles of paper in circles for weeks before boarding the train to Chicago, and he hadn't called before they shipped out.

He had nearly broken and done so, just once. It was the middle of the night and he couldn't sleep, and he had crept to the phone in the apartment where they were staying. He had gone so far as to lift the receiver and hang up when the operator had politely asked for the city. He didn't want to make an expensive call on a stranger's line. It was already generous enough to be allowed to stay there, alone, to enjoy what little time they had together before he left.

* * *

He had promised to write her, but he didn't have any practice with this type of writing. Ben poised with his pen over his notebook before scrawling, _My love_.

He paused and his brow creased, rereading the greeting several times.

No, no, he decided- too familiar. They were married, to be sure, but that did not warrant an affectionate, nameless greeting. He struck the line with a single, definitive stroke.

They had only known each other a couple weeks, really. He pictured her again, gamely brushing the tears from her cheeks at the dock when she thought he wasn't peeking over his shoulder back at her. She had been very quiet on the bus ride to Fort Mason, and not showed much emotion until it was nearly time for them to part ways. It had made him feel uneasy, not sure she'd miss him. He wasn't even sure if he wanted her to.

He placed the point of the pen to the paper and tried again.

 _Dear Rey_.

He huffed at himself. Now he'd gone from one extreme to the other. She wasn't a first-year student who needed gentle, firm correction on the misguided content of their essay. She was his wife. They had gone to City Hall, made it official. He had insisted she keep the photo her friend Jessika took of them as a reminder of him. He hated how he looked in pictures, anyway - always too stern, and even a bit nervous. He didn't think he felt nervous, but it was as if the camera had the power to capture and show him something in himself he couldn't see just looking in the mirror.

He doodled at the margin of the page again, determined to get through the first couple of lines without overthinking it.

 _My dearest R- We have left Hawai'i three days ago aboard the Finalizer. That territory is a strange, remote paradise._

Hawai'i was like nothing he'd ever seen, nor had most of them. Vegetation from an alien world with great, primordial-looking leaves, flowers in lurid colors with petals with intoxicating scents unlike the hollyhocks and peonies behind his uncle's barn. The warm, humid breeze that blew continually off the ocean had them feeling clammy from the time they woke until the time they laid their heads down on their bunks in the makeshift barracks. Their ship was being readied for the long-range trip to the South Pacific, where they would be stationed to await their assignment. It was a lot of hurrying up, then waiting, in Ben's estimation.

He continued, _It would be good to return when this is over with you, and fitting that we leave from the place that launched us into this madness. So far, spirits are high, but who knows what will happen when we finally reach Fiji_.

They were headed from one island to another, one station to the next. Admittedly, it wasn't quite what he'd pictured when he'd signed his enlistment papers at the Air Force office. Their commanders seemed to sense this from them and repeated platitudes about their military superiority, that American ideals could not be contained in their borders and that the Axis would soon fold under the pressure of their world-wide campaign.

He had private doubts about their assessment of the situation, but he didn't want her to worry. It was already enough that she worked in the shipyards, wondering if the vessels she riveted together- and the men they carried- would return intact.

 _The admirals tell us we should be confident, that the Japanese are on the run, but I fear we may be underestimating our unseen enemy._

There. That was accurate, he thought. It acknowledge both sides of the argument. He didn't want to be long-winded, so he concluded the short letter.

 _I miss you already, and I hope I am not being too bold to hope you miss me in return. Please give my regards to your family and to (y)our friends there in the city._

A trace of a smile crossed his lips as he thought about how he'd met her. She had been resistant at first, but had quickly warmed to him. But the suddenness of his affection for her had taken him off guard. Moreso, his desire to be _decent_ to her had overwhelmed him. What they had done was, in a word, crazy- getting married so soon after meeting, not telling either of their families, all that despite his impending deployment- but conventions be damned, he felt alive with her. For the first time in a long time, his future felt uncertain, and exciting. In a matter of months, it had gone from a straight line, mapped out and planned to the nth degree, to a great question mark. He had left behind everything and everyone he knew.

He signed the draft with a flourish. She made him uncharacteristically demonstrative, even as he worried over being too forward with her.

 _All my love,_

 _Ben_

A clean copy was folded in even creases into a waiting envelope, and he printed her address at the boarding house in neat, block print.

* * *

The night air up on deck was only a bit cooler than the barracks below, but the steady breeze off the water helped cool his sweaty skin. He counted the stars beginning to appear in the sky, holding a lungful of smoke until his chest began to burn. He had never smoked so much before as now; his mother hated it, but it was an excuse to get away from the close atmosphere of their bunks.

"Hey man, you got a light?" A voice startled him and he turned on his heel.

The other man was quite a bit shorter than himself, but his smile reached his eyes even with his lips curled around his unlit cigarette.

"Of course," Ben fished the lighter from his pocket and flicked it open.

"Appreciate it."

They stood a short distance apart in silence. Ben had seen this man around the ship enough to know he was a fellow pilot. He was likely as old as Ben, which put him in the older age group aboard the _Finalizer_ , but he had a youthful air about him, an easy fluidity with the other sailors that Ben already realized he lacked. The longer they were en route, the more he felt like a hothouse flower. The order and dignity he had learned to navigate so well at the university had no bearing here. As much as he had felt it stifled him there, he now loathed to admit he felt out of place without it.

"Ben Solo- I don't believe we've met yet." He stuck out his hand towards the stranger.

"Poe. Poe Dameron." They shook hands firmly, and Poe continued. "You're a pilot too. I saw you at the briefings."

Ben nodded. "That's right. I think they're putting me on bombers. How about you?"

Poe shrugged. "Doesn't matter," he took a deep drag on his cigarette and threw his head back, exhaling at the sky. "I can fly anything."

Ben studied his companion for a split second. He was taken aback by this Dameron's confidence.

Then Poe laughed, a sound that seemed to come from his very soul. Ben smiled to realize he was kidding. "I mean, I wanna fly everything. But I'll probably end up flying the big gals, too."

Ben just nodded and braced his foot on the railing of the deck. The water looked black alongside the hull. His cigarette was nearly at its end, but he had no desire to go back below deck to his bunk that was too short for his stupid, long legs.

"You got a family at home?" Poe gestured towards his hand with its wedding band.

"Just a wife," Ben worked his fingers self-consciously, turning the ring. He still wasn't used to wearing it, or answering questions about it. "We just got married before we shipped out from San Francisco."

"Congrats," Poe didn't look at him as he said it. Ben knew he should be polite.

"And you?"

Dameron smiled, looking slightly self-conscious. "I've got someone special back home, yeah."

He knew not to pry when they had just met. He would see this fellow around until he was sick of his face, and then some. But this smallest connection made him bold. He couldn't help himself, and he forged on.

"Where's home for you?" They were from all over.

"I grew up near Los Angeles," Poe offered. "But I've been in San Francisco for awhile now. I had some relatives there that I went to visit, and I just never went home."

Ben nodded. He had never lived anywhere but Indiana. It sounded so boring to him in comparison to California. His father had been an orphan, and his mother and uncle were the only ones left from their family. They had settled there, and stayed there.

"'Bout you?" Poe mirrored him now, leaning heavily on the railing with his boot braced on the bottom rung.

"Indiana," Ben chuckled. Rey had seemed fascinated by it when he'd described it to her as they strolled along the waterfront, but he had the sense that this Dameron would not be impressed.

Poe eyed him cautiously before muttering, "My condolences. You straight off the farm, or…?"

It was a fair assumption. Ben stood up straight and stretched, bending a bit backwards. He shook his head.

"I was working on my doctorate before I left. Studying to become a professor." He always felt the need to clarify. Everyone assumed he was becoming a medical doctor.

Poe gave a low whistle that sounded like a bomb spiraling out of the sky. "You planning to lecture the Japs out of the sky, or what?"

"I'm a decent pilot," Ben was on the defensive now. "My dad and uncle both flew in the Great War, and they taught me."

Poe nodded and flicked a stray bit of tobacco from his lip. The wind carried it away into the darkness. Ben resisted the urge to press his case, and instead stepped back to shove his hands in his pockets.

"I'll see you around, Dameron."

He strolled back to the door, head down, when Poe's voice stopped him.

"I'll see you in the sky, Teach."


	2. December 1943

December 1943

 _Nukufetau Airfield, Ellice Islands_

The sun burned Ben's shoulders where he crouched on the stoop of the barrack next to his fellow airman. He shielded his eyes with his broad palm, squinting from behind his sunglasses to see what was being written.

Blame Poe, he supposed. Blame Dameron and his teasing that he was sitting here, sweating down his back in the blazing sun.

The month of Christmas 1943 felt like summer. He'd gone from spring in Indiana, to what felt to him like mild summer in San Francisco, arrived to the South Pacific in the midst of tropical winter, and now languished in the heat of the summer once more in the southern hemisphere. The only relief was the constant breeze off the ocean. The spindly palm trees had been razed to construct the runways, and even now, on Sunday, he could still see a bulldozer working over the filled area in the distance, leveling it in preparation for asphalt to be graded on the surface. It would be the fighter runway when it was finished. He imagined taking off from such a strip would be no different than the grass runway near his folk's place: bumpy, slightly short, and requiring a steep climb at the end to avoid clipping the gear on the trees at the end.

Of course these military planes had the fancy folding landing gear, but there wasn't time for that before reaching the lone grove of coconut trees still intact at the far point. Better to clear them, then retract while turning away from the pattern. They'd been over it a million times in briefings.

"Teach?" The questioning lilt to the man's voice indicated he'd been waiting for an answer.

Ben turned his attention back to his companion and peered at the paper. He scanned the few lines and nodded. "That's a good start. Did you mean, 'I wish you were _here'_?'" He pointed to the mistake in usage. "Your lady's not deaf, is she?"

Miller stared at the paper, slowly shaking his head. "You tell me, Solo. I never could write a lick." A slight drawl dragged the i's in his speech more adjacent to the sound of an a. He reluctantly crossed out the word and replaced it. H-e-e-r.

Ben suppressed a frustrated sigh. He pictured his mother, her hand wrapped around his small one as he perched on her lap at her desk. She showed him how to make the shape of the letters. She never showed her frustration, even as he insisted on making the stem of his h's so short they were indistinct from n's.

He wasn't sure how she had stood to be so patient.

He decided not to point out the further mistake. At least it was the right letters, albeit the wrong order.

"I don't know what else to say," Miller pouted a bit. "What would you write?"

Ben squinted at the horizon once more, knowing where this would lead. "Well, I'm not you, am I? What matters is what you want to say."

Miller's shoulders slumped further and he tapped the stub of his pencil on the pad. "I guess I should tell her what I'd like to do, if we were together?"

Ben managed to contain his grin to the offside of his mouth. He shifted, trying to ease strain on his lower back. "I'm happy to proofread it, but you have to write it."

The man huffed beside him. "I miss her, y'know? Just… miss her."

Ben studied his companion's profile. "Why don't you just say that- that you miss her." A drop of sweat began to inch its way down his temple before Miller replied.

"We were trying," Miller said, a blush rising on his cheeks. "Trying to have a baby before I left."

Ben wasn't sure what to say- neither congratulations nor condolences were quite adequate. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes behind his sunglasses. He couldn't sympathize, not exactly, not when he'd taken such pains to keep Rey from bearing the burden of caring for their child without the certainty of his support.

But there were moments. Moments of boredom when he caught himself fantasizing about her, about what their children would look like. An almost unbearable lust would seize him to think of how her belly would swell with his child, and he knew he could not begrudge Miller the same.

"Alright," he acquiesced, his eyes still closed. "I'll help you write it."

* * *

In the countdown towards Christmas, the routine on base felt like a holding pattern over the runway that was still being constructed. If they weren't flying, they were briefing about flying, and if they weren't briefing about flying, they were talking about the briefings about flying. If he had thought his academic life was repetitive, this brought a new meaning to the word. He and Poe exchanged sideways glances and doodled in their notepads as certain fellow flyboys questioned the details of missions being outlined for the umpteeth time.

Gifts and small packages had begun arriving from the homefront weeks earlier, and the squadron carefully examined and rattled each brown-paper package before placing them back beneath the makeshift tree in the corner of their Quonset hut. It was a sad, drooping thing, dried palm fronds lashed together with a length of soldering wire and held upright with someone's dress pants wrapped around it as a tree skirt. The fronds didn't have the same quality as pine needles at all, making decorations impossible until one man stationed in the front office thought to relieve the supply cabinet of a pocketful of paper clips.

The decorations quickly took on a life of their own: a bit of foil shredded like tinsel from the mess, a red string from someone's gift, a gold button that had separated from a uniform. It was the strangest tree any of them had ever seen, but their hearts swelled with a certain longing each time they glanced at it.

On December 22, they rose to find a new gift from Santa hanging carefully from it.

Ben awoke to a whoop of laughter followed by sharp shushing sounds. He shifted onto his back with his eyes still closed, trying to track the hushed conversation that was gathering steam in the corner. Each new person who rose and joined the cluster of men let out an astonished guffaw, only to be silenced. The whispering took on a fevered pitch by the time he swung his legs off his bed and stretched.

The men didn't make room for him, but he was tall enough to peer over their heads at the source of the excitement.

It took a moment for him to fully process what he saw. Rey's letters thus far had been infrequent and their contents were chaste, but he knew well by now from his off-duty tutorial activities this was not the case for some of the others. It had made him doubt the tone of his own weekly updates when he'd learned the kinds of things the other men saw fit to share with their sweethearts and wives.

The woman in the photo did not look at all bothered by what might have been shared in a letter. She stood at a kitchen sink, the strings of her apron knotted in a neat bow just above the dimples on her back and the glorious curve of her pert, round bottom. Her back was arched invitingly, and the look she threw over her shoulder at the unseen audience sent a clear message. She braced her hands against the edge of the countertop and the toes of her left foot curled coyly around the back of her right. The peak of her nipple jutted out clearly even through the thick canvas of her apron.

Ben realized he was holding his breath against the prickling sensation in his groin as someone whispered, "Now _that_ is a mess I wouldn't mind helping clean up in the kitchen, hot _damn_!"

Their capacity for food-related boasts proved almost endless once the dam had broken.

"Shit, I'd have signed up for home ec if our teacher had taught that recipe!"

"I bet those titties make a tasty sandwich!"

"Do you think she'd let me give her an extra serving of meat?"

"I got a sausage special for you right here, baby - double-stuffed!"

He turned away to visit the latrine when someone groaned openly and the whole group dissolved into giggles.

He lingered a long while outside, until he saw Dameron strolling up the path from the airstrip. He was smoking, his cigs rolled carefully into his shirt sleeve over his bicep. Ben didn't wave, and Poe didn't seem to notice him. He wondered what Dameron was doing up and about at such an early hour.

Over the next few days, many more pictures began to grace their tree. Some were torn from magazines, others homemade, and even a few crude, hand drawn cartoons came to be pinned to the palm fronds.

The mail plane arrived two days later and he was surprised to have a thick envelope addressed in her neat handwriting. Reclining on his bed, he settled in to read it and was astonished when a few photographs fell out onto his chest as he unfolded the pages. He swept them quickly off him towards the wall, eyes darting around the room.

No one had noticed, too busy with their own mail to see what had happened.

He hadn't gotten a full look at the pictures, but what he had seen was already burned into his mind's eye.

Rey. Lingerie.

 _His_ Rey, in _lingerie_.

Perhaps there really was a Maker, he thought, a smile tugging at his lips.

Her letter felt like an afterthought, but he dutifully read the scant lines.

 _November 14, 1943_

 _San Francisco, Cal._

 _Hello Ben,_

 _How are you? I hope this letter reaches you, and that you enjoy it. I imagine you may not have much space for gifts, but you might put these in a book for safekeeping._

 _All is well here, save for your absence. The factory remains as busy as ever - no sign of the war stopping! Jess sends her regards; we think Jack is also in the South Pacific, though his letters are as infrequent as yours._

He paused at this, but continued with a slight shake of his head. He hadn't had time to fully learn her sense of humor. His letters had been as regular as anyone he knew of.

 _The weather remains mild here, save for the increasing rainstorms. It is probably quite different than winter in Indiana. I wish you were here to keep me warm as Old Man Winter comes to stay._

 _Love,_

 _R._

Ben reread her letter twice through before carefully shifting on his side to stash the photos in the envelope, sliding it up the scratchy, unnecessary wool blanket under his pillow. He was careful not to look at the pictures. What little he'd seen was already distraction enough.

The day crawled by an irritating haze of PT and briefings. Why they needed to brief on the twenty-fourth of December was not questioned. He closed his eyes doing push-ups, only partly to keep the sweat from trickling into them.

The mess hall was hung with garlands and mistletoe, and the cooks had done their best to spruce up the canned rations. They had found a few coconuts around and cracked them open, and some of the men tasted the thin, whitish fluid from inside.

Johanssen's face screwed up like a prune and he spit the liquid back into his cup. "That tastes like.. like…." He was at a loss for words.

"Your mom knows what it tastes like!"

The table erupted in howls of laughter and Johanssen's pale skin turned a shade close to his auburn hair. He was a polite, strapping farm kid from northern Minnesota and had the kind of cherubic countenance that invited endless teasing.

Dameron just grinned mysteriously and shook his head, taking a slug of strange juice as easily as he would a shot of whiskey.

Ben picked at his slice of ham and wondered what his family were doing. They had spent many holidays with his mother's university colleagues. He hadn't let himself think much about that since he'd left. The evenings almost always wound up the same, with Han and Luke dozing in armchairs near the fire after drinking several drinks too many, his mother debating all takers at the kitchen table, her own cheeks flushed and emboldened by liquid courage. This scene inevitably embarrassed him when he was younger, but as an adult, he grew fond of seeing her fired up, color licking up her cheeks and her eyes dancing as she refused, then eventually accepted, a forbidden cigarette. She hated the smell of them, banished Han to the porch to smoke, but would accept one reluctantly after much cajoling and a few glasses of scotch. He had asked her once why she did it, and she replied that it reminded her of being young.

He sawed a thick piece of meat and chewed it endlessly, the salt sucking every last bit of moisture from his tongue. The ham was tough and its hickory smoke faint, but it reminded him of home. That was the point, he guessed.

Thinking of Christmas made him think of someone else at home, but he tamped the thoughts down. He was determined to look forwards, to meet the challenge ahead of them.

The ensuing hours between dinner and all-quiet felt like a special eternity designed just to torture him. He waited until most of the barrack was sleeping that night before turning on his stomach and retrieving her letter, slowly working the flap open beneath his pillow so as not to wake them. He grasped the photos at the edges, careful not to touch the surface as he tucked them into the waistband of his undershorts and pulled down his shirt over it.

Creeping was not a motion that came naturally to someone of his stature, but he stole from the hut as gently as his impatience would allow, sidling through the screen door so as not to open it to the point of squeaking, then setting it closed without allowing it to slap as did so many on nighttime trips to the bathroom. The base was dark by design at night to prevent enemy detection, but a nearly-full moon provided enough light to see his way to the shower building. Stars twinkled overhead, and without the beating sun, Ben had to admit the climate of the island was not unpleasant. The latrine was closer, but there was too great a chance of being interrupted. Besides, they were little better than pit-toilets and smelled to high heaven.

He passed a sign tacked high on a tree of a buxom blonde hiking her skirts, reminding them to check their mosquito nets. Several men had taken ill with deadly fevers born by the insects, the likes of which they'd never encountered at home.

Safely inside a shower stall, Ben latched the crude door behind himself and finally withdrew his precious cargo from his waistband. He was sweating from the effort of arriving undetected, and hoped this had not damaged them.

It was fairly dark inside under the thatched roof, but the sharp contrast of the black and white photos he held between his thumb and forefinger transmitted a world of information. There were only three.

Where and when she had gotten this underwear, he didn't know; she hadn't had it in May when they'd married. To even call it such was generous: the dark material of her bra and panties was sheer, and while her expression read as shy, almost hesitant as she gazed back at him, her attire was anything but. He swallowed drily, shuffling through the poses a number of times. She was even more beautiful than he remembered.

Delicious, prickling heat spread up his belly and down his thighs instantly.

His Rey, kneeling on a bed with her thumb hooked suggestively in the band of her panties, her dark hair loose and across her cheeks. Her other hand pressed a pillow to her bare chest, hiding her perfect little tits from him but her underwear betrayed her modesty, the curve of her sex on display through the diaphanous material. He felt himself grow hard as he imagined tonguing her through them before pushing them aside to press his thick fingers into her. His imagination supplied the needy, pleading sound she made when he did this to her, and he reached down to free his cock from the confines of his pants.

He leaned back against the stall divider and studied the next photo, palming his length. It was sticky with sweat, and his hand caught at the delicate skin. He grimaced at the sensation but was not deterred.

Her second photo had her lying on her back, her slender legs stretched heavenwards in a blatant invitation. Her back was arched and her nipples showed clearly through her bra, little dark shadows beneath the fabric. She bit the tip of one finger, her other fingers splayed over her bare stomach as though she were contemplating touching herself elsewhere. His hand picked up speed as pictured looking down at her, spilling his seed onto the tiny swell beneath her navel that he loved to caress. It embarrassed her, but he loved it.

Or- perhaps he would relieve her of these silly panties, hook her knees over his shoulders and fill her until she bucked and writhed beneath him. His mind supplied him with endless possibilities given this limited fodder, uninhibited by physical constraints and concerns of practicality. His eyes wandered as his hand picked up speed, his breathing growing rapid and shallow. His shaft burned beneath the pressure of his hand and he stilled to notice a small tube propped on a cross-beam in the corner of the stall.

He leaned forward and peered at label, and a broad grin crinkled his cheeks to recognize it. They'd all been issued a standard ration of lube with prophylactics and been ordered, for the love of Maker and country, to use them _each_ and _every_ time, in combination and never otherwise.

Ben had never been so happy to disobey orders.

The thick gel warmed quickly on his palm and grew thinner as he slathered a generous amount on his erection, his stinging skin soothed as he gripped more tightly now.

The girl he had met and married in a matter of weeks was an eager pupil who had needed only patient encouragement to warm to him. The Rey of his imagination now was a seasoned seductress, a siren leading him astray and he was happy to oblige her every whim, to descend to the fires of a hell unknown to please her. He submitted and dominated in equal turns, his mind unable to stay on one thread for more than a few moments before he was rearranging her, changing her to please himself.

He slowed his hand as he felt the inevitable tightening in his balls, never wanting it to end but chasing his release. Ben's breathing stuttered and he managed not to cry out as he spurted thick, hot ropes of come through his fingers.

He sagged back against the door of the stall, panting and swearing, his hand a sticky mess of lube and his own spend. The photos were still clutched in his off-hand, safely away from the mess. He shifted them in his grasp, fanning them like a seasoned card player at the table.

"Merry Christmas," he whispered to the third Rey, the one whose bottom stuck up pert in the air, inverted with her chest pressed to the bed. Her black panties dangled halfway down her thigh on the way to her knees. She'd let him have his way with her once this way, and he dared say, she had very much liked it.

"Merry fucking Christmas."


	3. June 1944

_South Pacific_

Though he knew it was useless to tally the days, Ben couldn't help himself. It was his nature to quantify, and in this fair-weathered, seasonless place, it was one of the only ways to mark the time.

6 months since he received her photos.

2 days since he had last looked at them.

5 months since her last letter had arrived.

13 months since they'd parted ways at the dock in San Francisco.

3 hours since the last time he wondered if his mother would ever speak to him again.

Ben sighed at this last thought and flattened Rey's last substantial letter against his book, skimming the lines he had all but memorized by now.

 _October 1943, SF Cali._

 _My love,_

 _I miss your company more than words can say. Even as I am surrounded by so many people each day, I feel lonelier than ever, knowing you are so far away and in harm's way. It is curious that city life can be so isolating, isn't it? Sometimes, I see men that I mistake for my father and start after them, but it always turns out to be a stranger. I really should give up on the childish notion that he'll come back to our family._

Ben gazed at a fixed point over the top of his book at the springs on the underside of the top bunk. Her naked sentiment, rendered in such simple language, cut him to the quick each time he read it.

 _But enough about that sad story! We are riding the wave of a revolution here, all of us "Rosies" and "Wendys" in the shipyards. Our foremen are optimistic that the war will end this year, and took a voluntary resignation from women who wanted to return home. As for me, I can't imagine being at home full time - it would make me crazy, and besides, my family has always been poor and had to work._

 _My housemates are a source of much amusement. The landlady of our house, Maz, is quite the grand dame. She's rather tall, with large glasses and wears lots of jewelry. I suppose you would call her eccentric, but she is fair and caring to us, and runs a tidy house. My room is quite small, but it has what I need, and we are all asked to do with less so that our country may succeed on both fronts._

 _We began a Victory garden in the yard behind the house this fall, planting vegetables that might grow in this cool, damp climate - peas, onions, carrots. It remains to be seen how fruitful it will be, but it's right to pitch in as much as we all can._

 _I have a surprise in store for you for Christmas, and I think you'll enjoy it very much._

His heart had stuttered the first time he'd read this sentence, fearing different news than the one that had arrived in her Christmas letter. It still quirked his lips to think of the surprise that had greeted him instead. He kept her photos to himself in a selfish only-child maneuver, tucked in the pages of a philosophy book that no one wanted to look at. His fellow soldiers marveled his capacity to pour over the text, and he merely grinned like the Cheshire Cat over the top of the book at them. Let the others share; she was his, and the mere thought of one of them touching himself over her was enough to sink him into a black mood.

The smile fell from his lips when he thought of his mother once more. They had never been apart for the holidays before.

 _It is late, my love, and I'm afraid I must turn in. The trip to the shipyards begins early tomorrow. I long for your arms around me as the moon makes its trip across our sky once more._

 _All my love,_

 _R._

Ben folded her letter back into neat folds and replaced it in its envelope. By his calculations based on the postmark dates, it took up to four weeks for mail to arrive from California. This October letter had arrived just before Thanksgiving, and he imagined her dropping her gift to him into a post box shortly after the holiday. His gaze wandered once more, wondering what they would've eaten if they had been together. Then too, as he did more and more as of late, he wondered why she did not think to write more often. He managed to post a letter about once a week, but hers were very few and far between. Others received packages and letters with greater regularity, and while he didn't want to measure her by the standards of others, it nagged at him.

He mentioned it to Poe once, noticing that the other man also did not receive many communications from the homefront. Poe had regarded him coolly when he made the observation.

"Everybody's different," Poe waved it away with a flick of his hand. "Do you ever stop wonder if all those letters you write are getting to her? The west coast is practically a war zone with all the factories."

Poe's insight had set him back on his heels for a bit. His fellow pilot never offered any details about his own relationship, and Ben knew better by now than to pry. It was certainly true that San Francisco was a major area for troop deployments, munitions, and equipment-building. It stood to reason that the government might consider it in need of higher security than other places.

But surely, letters from their own troops would not be under suspicion…? He felt naive considering it, that the thought of spies among them hadn't occurred to him before now.

Acknowledging that feeling drew his thoughts back to his mother. She had hurled the word at him as an insult before he'd left, and the idea that she had been right made him feel small. He curled onto his side facing the wall and closed his eyes against the scratchy feeling rising in them.

* * *

 _March 1943_

Indiana

The final weeks leading up to his date of report passed in an uneven rhythm. The hours spent briefing his colleague who was taking over his sections at the university glided by, while the evenings at home crawled. He spent as many of them as he could helping Luke in the barn, or walking with his father.

It was Thursday before the Monday he was due to leave, and he was expected at the local graduate watering hole for a round of farewell drinks. The light was fading rapidly outside as he switched off the light in his study carrel at the main library and gave the key to the young man at the front desk.

He was just about to put the key in the lock of his dad's old truck when her voice stopped him.

"Any room for one more?"

He hadn't heard Lyn come up behind him. She had barely spoken to him since he'd told her his decision about enlisting. He turned slowly back to see her shiver in the damp March air, her legs exposed beneath her skirt. She ventured a small smile.

"I didn't expect you'd want to come tonight." He didn't answer her question. "Don't feel like you have to."

She looked crestfallen, just for a second, at his rebuff. She tipped her chin at him and he could see her determination.

"Ben, please- let's not argue," Evelyn stepped a stride closer. "You can drop me at home on the way, if that's better."

He sighed and looked at the ice forming in the edge of a puddle in the lot between them. Was he wrong not to want her there? Why did it even bother him? They'd spent the bulk of the year before arguing over the US's involvement in the conflict. He knew where she stood, and vice versa. Nothing she could say at this point would change his mind.

"Hop in, we can decide on the way."

The narrow, tree-lined streets with small bungalows near campus gave way to broader ones with large, stately homes. Their house was near the end of a block, and Ben cut the engine as he guided the truck into their driveway.

The silence without the noise of the motor stretched between them. Neither of them had spoken on the short drive. Ben peered up at the house.

"Pretty dark tonight."

Evelyn nodded, not looking at him. "My parents are at a fundraiser."

Now it was his turn to nod. Her father was in his element, no doubt. The chancellor loved to hold court at these things.

"Can I…" Ben trailed off. He gestured lamely towards the door.

"Please," she acquiesced as though relieved by his making the decision for her. "That would be nice."

He rounded the truck and opened her door, and they walked side-by-side to the front door. He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, and she clutched her stack of books to her chest. He waited politely as she opened the door and placed her things on the chair beside the hallway mirror.

He looked around at the sitting room once more. Everything was as he remembered it: the rug they had played on as children, the arm chair she had pushed him off backwards that gave him the scar on his cheek, the porcelain figurines her mother collected when her family spent the summer in Switzerland. The grandfather clock chimed once on the half-hour. They were expecting him any minute at the bar. He had refused several offers of rides, wanting to be alone on the way. Her mother had left the radio playing in the kitchen and a lone trumpet bleated plaintively over the rest of the orchestra.

"Well." Her tone was soft. Her auburn hair read very dark with the lights off in the room.

"Well."

She closed the gap between them and pressed her slender body to his, weaving her arms under his and around his back, under his winter jacket. It startled him, feeling her warmth after all these months, and he reluctantly returned the gesture with a hand between her shoulder blades.

"I feel like this is my fault." Her voice was muffled against his sweater. "That you're going."

He looked down at the top of her head, and bowed his until his lips brushed the part in her hair. "It's not." He turned his cheek to her silky hair. "You know that."

He lifted his head when she moved to look up at him, her chin braced against his sternum. "It's not," he repeated, looking into her eyes. He could see the tears beginning to glitter in the edges, and he cupped her face in his broad hands. Her cheeks were chilled from being outside, but her breath was warm on his thumb as he brushed it over her lip.

Ben knew better. Really, he did. The metronome of the grandfather clock ticked off the seconds as he bent to her. The floor board creaked beneath them as they shifted, kneading and pulling and stumbling towards the couch in a familiar dance. He knew better, but he was _tired_ \- tired of resisting, of avoiding her eyes, of the sense of _them_ that lingered despite their differences. He let her press him back against the cushions and closed his eyes as she climbed astride his lap. Her shoe hit the floor with a soft thud. It was too easy returning to each other, and he was too weak to formulate a reason why not to.

"Lyn," he murmured around her kisses. "We should use a-"

"Shhhh," she hushed him. "It's fine, it's the wrong time of month, it's fine."

Who was he to argue? The ragged sound of her breath went straight to his groin as she undid his trousers and he hiked up her sensible winter wool skirt. It paused him for a moment to wonder why she was not wearing stockings for warmth, but he forgot his concern and delighted in her shudder as his cold fingers skated up her inner thighs.

The radio continued to play and Bessie Smith's voice issued from the tinny speaker.

 _After you've gone_

 _And left me crying_

 _After you've gone_

 _There's no denying_

 _You'll feel blue, you'll feel sad..._

He didn't wonder how she'd feel after he was gone.

 _There'll come a time_

 _Now don't forget it_

 _There'll come time_

 _When you'll regret it_

 _Someday…_

He didn't think of anything except how good it felt not to think and to just succumb to the familiar.

* * *

The clock in his parents' house was striking half past eleven when he crept through the door, waving to his friend who had dropped him off. He sagged back against it, hissing at Artoo to silence his excited whining before he woke the entire household. The short, chubby dog wagged so hard his entire hindquarters shook, but he remained quiet as Ben unlaced his shoes and placed them near the door.

Turnout had been good at his going-away and his head swam with the number of whiskies he'd accepted. He couldn't wait to feel the cool sheets against his fevered skin and for the room to stop tilting around him. He swayed as he stood, bracing his hand against the wall to steady himself. Yes, he needed his bed. The morning would be painful, no doubt about it.

Artoo's nails clicked on the wood of the stairs ahead of him as he concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other.

He was five stairs up when he heard Leia's footsteps in the hallway.

"Ben."

He stopped with one foot in mid-air and pivoted clumsily on his other. He wasn't drunk enough not to catch his mother's raised eyebrow. Her hair was down in its long night braid, and she wore one of his father's old house coats over her nightgown. The effect was rather that of a feudal samurai like the woodblocks in one of her art books.

"General," he greeted her with an impertinent fake salute and sank down onto the stair.

Leia's lips formed a thin line and her tone was strained as she replied. "May I speak to you?"

His head throbbed as he thought about having any kind of discussion with her right now. "Well, you're _speaking_ to me right now," he slurred a bit.

Her face went blank and she drew herself up to her full height with her arms crossed. "You are never more like him than when you're drunk," she muttered before turning on her heel. "Come in my office - I don't want to wake your father."

Ben covered his face with his hands. He didn't want to do this tonight, but the thought of doing it in the morning made his stomach churn. He steadied himself with a hand on each of the railings and lurched back into a standing position.

Leia's office was dark save for the desk lamp. Like his own attic workspace, hers was crowded with papers and piles of books with all manners of markers sticking out - scraps of paper, lengths of ribbon, the occasional pencil propped through the corner to keep her page. One entire wall was a bookshelf and Ben would've been hard pressed to find an empty space to slot in one more volume.

As a child he had loved her office more than anything. As an adult it made him feel claustrophobic.

He sank into the armchair in front of her. The alcohol had seized his brain enough that he had trouble focusing on a point. His eyes had a mind of their own and kept tracking slightly to the left without his participation.

"Well, your highness?" He drew the word out, dripping with sarcasm. She was right. Drinking did bring out his father in him.

"It looks like you had yourself a fine time this evening," Leia kept her arms crossed in front of her and ignored his slight.

"Yeah, well, I'm not going to tell people 'no' if they want to buy me a drink before I go defend our country."

Leia steepled her fingers against her forehead and sighed noisily. "You cannot possibly be so naive as to believe that!"

She had said many things to try to reason him out of going in the months following his enlistment, but this was a new take. "Naive?! How is it any different than you and Uncle Luke volunteering in the Great War? And Dad?!"

"That was a different time, and we were kids," Leia said with the unassailable conviction of age. It drove him nuts when she took this tone with him. "You aren't a child. You have a future ahead of you _here_ -"

"What future?" He erupted at her remark and the alcohol dulled his sense of how loud he was being. He didn't care. "There might not be anything to come back to, if we don't fight now! What, are you gonna wait and throw a textbook at the Germans when they hoist the swastika over the university? Are you gonna stab them in the leg with a pencil when they pile up all your precious publications in the library and bend you over a table while they torch it-"

" _Ben!_ "

His father's roar echoed down the stairway and cut him short.

The door to the office banged open a second later and Han appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the hallway light behind him.

"Don't you raise your voice to your mother!" His father pointed a finger at him. "You may be off to the front next week but tonight you're still under my roof!" Han jerked his thumb back at himself. "What the hell is going on down here?"

Ben shot out of the armchair and stumbled over a loose book at his feet. "Oh, now you're concerned what's going on in here? Isn't it a little late for that, _Dad_?"

Han looked astonished at his outburst, then a familiar scowl knit his brow and even in his state Ben knew he had crossed a line. His father hid his true emotions deep under a protective shield of humor and sarcasm, but they bubbled to the surface in short, terrifying transmissions.

"You're drunk. Go to bed before you say something you can't take back," Han's tone was low and clipped, his breathing punctuating his sentences. "So that in the morning, I can see the face of my son."

His breathing was labored as he brushed past his father without a backwards glance at Leia. It was so unfair the way they only acted as a unit when it was time to gang up on him. He took pains to stomp as heavily as possible up the stairs to the attic and slam the door so that the window rattled in the skylight. Ben threw himself on the narrow twin bed without removing his clothes and turned on his side to face the wall. His eyes were scratchy but he refused to give them the satisfaction of letting tears fall from them.

The whiskey in his nervous system made the world lurch and his stomach roil like it had once on a roller coaster by the ocean. It alternated between a plane of sticky, woozy desire to sleep and moments of being sure he needed to struggle over to his desk trash can to be sick. Every time he closed his eyes a wave of nausea threatened his middle and he opened his eyes once more to stave off the sensation, swallowing hard against the spit collecting in his mouth.

While he had always been scornful of fiction that depicted the protagonist's thoughts as swimming before his eyes, he could think of no better metaphor as a carousel of snippets of conversation and images from the day whirled in his mind. No sooner did he acknowledge them than his brain would supply another.

It was unpleasant but exhausting and he was nearly asleep when he heard something at the door.

"Go away!" The sound of his own voice echoed weakly under the roof.

There was a shuffle outside the door, then a thump.

He rolled onto his back and gathered his strength to stagger off the bed. The doorknob felt icy in his fevered hand. "I said, _Go aw-_ "

He stopped short as he yanked open the door. There was no one there.

Artoo's snort brought his gaze down. Ben stared at the beast where he lay on his back with his front paws curled over his chest. His thick, stubby tail thumped against the wood floor in a happy, staccato beat and his tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth to see Ben standing over him.

He groaned at the pain in his midsection when he leaned over and gathered the arthritic dog to his chest.

Artoo's warm, wriggly weight was the rock that anchored him to the bed and finally pushed his head under the wave of sleep.


	4. February 2, 1945

The dream was always the same.

He woke from it sweating, clutching the thin muslin sheets to his bare chest.

Ben sat up on the edge of his bunk and stared blindly out the screen door at the palm fronds swaying in the night breeze. The insects in this alien corner of the world had a different song than the summer cicadas in Indiana. He had grown so used to them he thought he might miss them, if he ever made it home.

 _Home_.

Where was that now, he wondered as he sank back onto his bunk and tried to calm his breathing.

The thought of home with his parents and Lyn and the Chancellor tightened his diaphragm to the point where he had to remind himself to inhale, exhale.

The dream that woke him repeatedly these days had no discernible plot. It was a jumble of panicked feelings and images, and the Chancellor speaking cryptic, confusing things to him that made him feel small and needy. Like he couldn't live without the Chancellor's approval and guidance and that nothing, nothing he did was good enough.

Rey told him she dreamt of an island. They had lain entwined in her friend's cousin's bed and he had come close, so close to confessing his weakness to her, how he'd run away from his family and responsibilities and his whole damn _future_ that lay so clearly and perfectly before him that he felt compelled to rebel against it. After she'd drifted off, he'd crept to the telephone table in the hallway. He pictured her island, a tiny, emerald rock in the middle of a stormy sea under a flat, gray sky.

"What city, please?"

The operator's disembodied voice jolted him to his senses. He couldn't make a long-distance call on a stranger's phone. Besides, what would he say to his parents?

He had replaced the receiver in its cradle and stared for a long time at his own reflection in the hallway mirror. He wasn't exactly sure what she saw in him. His face was… well, there were certainly better-looking fellows all around this place. He hadn't expected to meet someone here in this temporary stopover on his way to war.

Let alone _marry_ someone.

Ben traced his fingers over the sagging mattress springs on the bunk above him and tried closing his eyes once more.

The nightmare vision of the Chancellor's face swam in front of his closed eyes. It was scarred and twisted, his skull completely bald, partly cleaved and caved in over his left eye. The rest of his face had shrunken in on itself, his mouth a tiny, saliva-wet opening from which a raspy, rumbling voice issued forth. Depending on how he angled his head as he spoke to Ben- the voice always seemed to come from above, as though Ben knelt in supplication before him- he looked either like a benevolent elder or an evil sorcerer.

The voice sounded like the Chancellor, and yet it didn't. It sounded partly like the creature Ben had imagined his childhood band of knights battling in the woods, his brother at his side as they conquered the darkness that was overtaking their designated territory.

What was it that had Rey written him about the past? Her last letter had arrived over six months ago, and when he was not dreaming of decrepit wizard fathers, he wondered why she did not write. Poe's explanation was reasonable enough, but here, alone and awake in the night, a dark, possessive streak in him compelled him to imagine her being willingly defiled by any number of other men. The compulsion grew stronger with each delivery of mail that left him empty-handed, and the more he looked at her pictures, now dog-eared from his repeated handling, the less he felt he knew her. Really, what resemblance did this comely vixen bear to the steely young woman who had let him pursue her? The smile that had once warmed him struck him as cruel and teasing, withholding her virtue in black-and-white. _Look_ , it seemed to say, _but you can't touch_.

Still, he refused to share her with the others. If he couldn't have her, no one else could. And when he was alone and sunk into one of these moods, he allowed himself to imagine the depraved things he would do to her, how he would capture her and wipe that teasing expression off her face. He would carry her away, tie her up if he had to, and show her what they were meant to be.

He shook his head against the vision of the Chancellor and his perverted thoughts of Rey. Her last letter was tucked with the others in the back of his book. Rereading her platitudes about missing him and the banal goings-on at work and the city did nothing to soothe his nerves. Did she not write because she felt she had nothing to tell him?

 _Maz always tells me, The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead. I suppose this is her way of telling me not to dwell on the past, and to look forward to our future. Do you think often of your family?_

Oh, sweet, sweet girl. If only she knew. The more he tried to forget the past, the more he thought of it. What he believed had been buried dormant under a layer of ash was an ember that had flared unexpectedly to life with the slightest puff of air across it.

* * *

AN: Hello lovely readers! Happy New Year! I intended to finish this story before TLJ came out, but that obviously didn't happen. I realize this is a rather short update, but I just started a new job and you know how that goes. ;) I hope you're still reading and enjoying TSAB, and please consider this part 1 of 2 - part 2 is being written as we speak.

February 1945 was the Battle of Corregidor, which is considered the turning point in the Pacific front for the US in WWII. As you may recall from Chapter 13 (What'll I Do?) of Right When I Arrive, Ben wrote Rey a letter following the battle, and it was... not chaste. :)


	5. February 14, 1945

They all knew this day was coming. Months of briefings had lead up to it, steadily filled with more higher-ups sporting more decoration, all pointing to the same tiny corner of the map on a string of islands whose names they weren't sure how to pronounce.

The effort was starting to feel endless. Reports from Europe were promising: a foolish winter invasion of Russia had set the Krauts back on their heels, and a unilateral assault on the coast of occupied France had been in the works since he'd enlisted. But on their side of the globe, little had changed since their arrival. They were still confined to bases on islands and carriers, and the Japanese showed no signs of retreating or being beaten. The revenge they'd hoped to inflict, the payback for Pearl Harbor, had not yet happened.

He and Poe had flown four successful strafing missions apiece over the port before they got the order to muster at o-four-hundred on February 16.

"Shit," Poe muttered under his breath, crossing his arms belligerently. A sour expression set in on his handsome features.

Ben shifted forwards to lean his elbows on his knees, but said nothing. They both knew this day might come.

Dropping bombs was one thing. Live men was an entirely different matter.

"Your way will be cleared by several more rounds of low bombing passes. The bombardment over the last three weeks has definitely softened the enemy's defences." The latest general stood ramrod straight in front of them, his fingers laced behind his back. "Each craft will be carrying four units of troopers. Aerial assault is scheduled to begin at oh-eight-thirty sharp."

Poe's hand shot up.

"Yes, Captain...?"

"Captain Dameron, sir," Poe stood now. "How low and slow do you estimate we'll need to fly to safely make the drop?"

The general hesitated and while the pilots shifted nervously at Poe's boldness, they knew by the pause they wouldn't like the answer.

"Max 3,500 foot," the general replied.

Ben hung his head. The C-47's were slow as molasses and handled like a stubborn cow.

"Thirty-five hundred?!" Poe repeated in disbelief. A murmur of agreement ran through the room. "Do you want us to get shot out of the sky?"

"Jesus, Dameron!" Ben muttered into his hands, but he knew Poe was right.

"Yes, thirty-five hundred, and the large number of troopers will necessitate two passes," the general went on.

The murmur became an outright groan. This was suicide.

The troop general spoke up now. "Gentlemen, as you know, the target area is very small. Even flying that low, there won't be time for all the men to jump and reach the target. If they go all in the same run, they risk being blown straight over hostile territory."

Poe dropped back into his chair with a huff. Ben straightened up and glanced at his friend. A muscle twitched in his jaw but Poe said nothing further.

* * *

Ben woke long before the call on the day of attack, and lay restlessly in his bunk. The air in the quonset hut was still and humid, but he could hear the wind moving the palm trees outside. He wondered if the wind would affect the drop.

Never until now had he been that concerned with his own mortality. Being an airman meant being above the fray, but this mission seemed designed to throw them down in the muck with every sailor and infantryman they'd been with for the past eighteen months. If they were meant to die, it would be together.

When faced with the possibility of his own death, Ben thought not of what it would feel like - if it would hurt? Would he know it in the moment? If he would suffer?

He thought of Rey. He imagined the look on her face when she got the news, wondering how she would take it. Would her face crumple as it had when she'd seen him off at the dock? Was he being arrogant to believe she would shed tears for a man she barely knew? Would she remarry- or even tell people she had been married at all? What kind of a marriage would they have had?

They all dressed in the dark, trying not to disturb their fellow men still hoping to get a moment's peace before launching into the thing they thought they had all come for.

Ben found himself unable to look at the paratroopers assembling near the cargo door his designated bird. He didn't want to look in their eyes, to know if they felt the same fear he did, or for them to see it in him. He envied their courage to leap into battle.

Huddled with the other pilots, they bowed their heads and said a prayer to guide their hands and hearts true, to keep them and their cargo safe, and to watch over them and their families.

"Remember," Poe intoned, his eyes closed. "The First Order will always find its way home."

They nodded and dispersed to their craft.

Buckling his seatbelt in the cockpit, Ben flipped on the radio and placed the headphones over his ears.

"Skywalker," he gave his call sign.

A second later, Poe's voiced echoed in his ear as if through a tin can. "Rebel."

Ben set to his checklist as the others reported.

Flaps - up. He cocked them to their downward extend and then back to neutral.

"Scavenger."

Carb - on.

"Gold Leader!"

Mixture - rich. He pulled the knob to its hilt.

"Cowboy."

Fuel - both. He set lever on the floor between him and his copilot to both tanks.

"Clear prop!" He yelled out the window and waited for the groundsman to answer before hitting the starter for the left side.

"Clear!" The groundsman gave him a gloved thumbs-up and draped the heavy chock over his shoulder, backing safely away with his eye on the engine.

The engines spluttered then caught, shaking the craft before smoothing out. He leaned up the mixture and the faint puff of smoke from the engines cleared so he could do his run-up. He flicked the fuel gauge on the instrument panel with his fingernail and watched in satisfaction as both tanks rose up slightly over the full indicator. They were loaded to the gunnels, but they'd need every drop. It was an hour to the target each way, and with two passes, they'd be on fumes by the time they coasted back to the base.

 _If_ they made it back.

* * *

They spent most of the hour of the outbound flight to target safely at altitude before beginning their descent to the perilously low mark appointed for the drops. The wind was not in their favor, blowing straight on the nose and slowing them past their appointed hour.

And, Ben noted in his log, burning more fuel than expected. The auxiliary tank had been removed to make room for the paratroops.

Their wingmen in lightweight fighter craft continued to strafe the area ahead of them, and once the light fog and low-lying clouds cleared over the port, several pillars of smoke framed the target clearly.

"Alright, boys," Poe's voice was scratchy over the com. "This is it. Low 'n slow, just like the general ordered."

"Just like your momma ordered," Scavenger's joke cut the tension, their laughter echoing round-robin on their channel.

"I didn't hear any complaints from yours last night!" Poe's retort was sharp but teasing.

Ben composed himself before switching channels to notify the troop leader.

"Lieutenant, we're nearly at the target altitude," he relayed, cocking the flaps back to neutral and slowing the engines up even further. He watched as the needle of the altimeter dropped from 4,000… 3,900… 3,700... 3,600…

"Ready on your mark."

"Roger," the lieutenant confirmed, and then he heard the fray of the first two units of troops leaping from the rear door.

They went through a patch of rough air and he held the stick as steady as he could. It was too close to see the trajectory of the troops as they fell, but he could spot a few 'chutes popping open ahead and below as they drifted from Poe's plane. The target was a steep hill, and sure enough, the headwind that had plagued them was carrying some of the troops backwards, away from the intended drop into the thick green foliage.

Almost immediately, he saw bullets whizz past a few troops and one man convulsed midair. His hands went cold inside his gloves to realize what had happened, and he had to fight his instinct to pull up and _just_ _get the hell out of there_.

"First two units are away!" The lieutenant's voice startled him back to action and he grabbed the stick almost to his naval, revving the engines to climb and bank as steeply as the C-47 would allow. He followed Poe's path to the southwest, switching his channel again to listen to the pilot chatter.

"...lost a couple boys!" He came in a the tail end of Poe's statement. A chorus of _fucks_ and other blue language ensued, much of it directed at the higher-ups for this suicide mission they were currently on.

"With the headwind, they should jump past the point," Ben offered. "With any luck they'll drift back to the target."

"Skywalker, if we do that we're gonna be flying real low right over the Jap guns!" Scavenger's gruff voice filled his ear. "Unless you feel like dying today?"

"We're already flying right over their artillery!" Ben argued. "And you're not the one jumping! I'm not gonna risk 50 more kids' lives because it makes _me_ nervous to fly low, are you?"

The line was quiet for a moment with only the static white noise filling it.

"Skywalker's right," Cowboy spoke up, his Texan twang drawing out the vowels. "It ain't about us. We need these boys to make it safely down."

Poe finally spoke up. "This ain't dusting crops, Teach, but I think you're right. Follow my lead."

They banked again and began their second descent into the port. A few white parachutes were visible in the trees even at their altitude and Ben noticed with dismay that his left tank already read slightly less than half-full. The right sat a touch above the mid-way mark. He switched channels once more and relayed their plan to the the troopers.

"See you at base," the lieutenant confirmed. "I'm going out this round."

"Copy that, and good luck," Ben replied, slowing the engines further. They were no more than 3 minutes out, and he could see the men free-falling from Poe's plane. He had gone past the point of the hill before they had begun their jump, and sure enough, the wind was carrying them backwards towards the target.

Poe was climbing already when Ben gave his okay. The amount of time it took the second wave to jump, knowing they were directly over hostile territory, was an eternity.

"Yeeeee-haw!" The lieutenant's voice was swept away as he jumped from the plane, and Ben followed Poe up, up into the sky. They were both climbing and turning towards home when Gold Leader's panicked voice lit up the coms.

"I'm hit!"

They looked back just in time to see a plume of black smoke coming off the trailing edge of Gold Leader's wing, and a second later, the plane was engulfed in a fireball as the tank caught. Some of the men had managed to jump but their parachutes were on fire, and they were spiraling towards the jungle at a deadly rate.

"Shit!" Poe swore.

"Making my drop now," Scavenger steeled himself to fly right into Gold Leader's path. "Fuck these motherfuckers!"

"Careful," Ben warned, continuing the climb to safety.

"There's nothing we could've done," Cowboy said softly. "Could've been any of us."

A rock formed in his stomach as he looked out at the line of the horizon. Scavenger and Cowboy formed up behind them, and the coms were silent as they lit out for base.

* * *

When it finally came on February 28, the news felt anticlimactic. The fighting had dragged on for over ten days following their mission, and after Banzai and the horror of Malinta Hill, Corregidor was secure once more.

The celebration in the mess hall was muted but sloppy, with many glasses of whiskey being hoisted to their achievement, but it felt hollow somehow. It was one defeat in what felt like an impenetrable wall of defense all around the Pacific Rim.

The air inside was thick with smoke and he stepped outside to clear his head. The night sky was clear and a few stars glittered already.

It was yesterday where she was. The idea still addled his brain that he was a day ahead of her here. What he did today was still in her future. What was she doing, yesterday? As out of sync as he felt with her, the notion that he might yet go to his grave in this terrible corner of the world without her even knowing how he felt haunted him. The dreams of the Chancellor had only grown more intense over the past several weeks.

He flicked his cigarette into the sand and lit out for their barrack.

"Teach?" He heard someone call after him, but pretended he didn't hear. The fray grew quiet behind him as he stalked through the night.

For once, Ben wrote without hesitation. He pictured her at the funhouse on the beach, the steady breeze off the ocean whipping her freckled cheeks a ruddy shade and the salt air tangling her brown curls. It was then he had noticed how her fingers were stained from her work. The bed of her nails was grey from grease and the pads of her fingers had traces of dark in the grooves of her fingerprints. He loved that she didn't care, didn't wear gloves and plucked handfuls of cotton candy and shoved them in her mouth with her dirty fingers. This was the girl he wrote to, not the one she played for him in her pinups. The one who had let him capture her, scoop her up in his arms and accepted his unstudied proposal.

"Marry me," he whispered in her ear, close enough to taste the salt left on her skin by the sea. "I feel like I've known you my whole life."

If he weren't already besotted with her, the look she gave him when she reared her head back to look at him would've made him so.

"Yes," she whispered back. "Don't be afraid- I feel it too."

He kissed her with his eyes open so he could memorize how she looked in that moment.

Yes, she was the girl he wrote to, his Rey. A brief introduction about the state of things, then he got to it.

 _Forgive my candor_ , he began with an apology he did not mean, _but being so recently faced with mortality has us all counting our blessings and reminiscing more than usual about those we left behind to come to this forsaken place._

Until now he had been veiled in his letters, even embarrassed to put his thoughts of her to paper. But why? He had helped dozens of his fellow soldiers define their basest wishes to their sweethearts. He scribbled out his before his cautious nature could get the better of him.

 _I cannot stop thinking about what we would do if I were there, or you were here._

His own advice echoed in his mind. Be specific.

 _I miss every part of you, from the odd freckle on your lower back to the lock of hair that won't stay put behind your ear, to your permanently stained hands._

He pictured her sucking the cotton candy residue off her fingers once more and the light in her eyes as he trailed after her on the boardwalk like a lost puppy.

 _I want to taste your dirty fingers in my mouth while you suck on my cock, and I will swallow my name from your lips as I fill your tight pussy with my own hand in return._

Rereading his lowbrow sentiment, he nearly struck it before shaking his head and deciding to continue. This wasn't an academic paper. Why should he be embarrassed? She was his wife.

 _I will spread your beautiful thighs and worship you with my tongue, and I will gladly fuck you until neither of us can walk anymore. I would do anything you asked, no matter how crude, to satisfy this ache that will not subside._

If only she knew how many nights he'd lain awake picturing her. She would no doubt think him a monster if he revealed the dark character his fantasies sometimes took on, and he chose to concentrate on her participation. She had been more than willing in the week they'd had.

 _Some men around me feel it is our right as husbands to take whatever we want, but I refuse to submit to such thinking, knowing the gift of your desire is more satisfying than any way I could force myself on you._

Surely they were nearing the end of this madness? How could the Japanese keep going?

 _I pray this is over soon so that I may make good on this promise. The nights are too long without you._

 _Forever yours,_

 _B._

* * *

 _A/N:_ Consider this chapter 4.5-ish. My apologies for the long break in this story! I just started a brand-new job so I'm hoping to get this story tied up before things become totally nuts.

Again, the Battle of Corregidor was in late February, 1945. The Douglas C-47s were used both in Europe & the Pacific by the Allies.

Artistic license has been taking with how low the First Order have to fly to accomplish this mission; I'm told paratroopers typically drop from 20K+ foot so 3,500 almost certainly seems like a suicide mission.


	6. September 1945

_August 21, 1945_

 _Pacific Ocean_

Blame Dameron.

Blame Poe with that manic gleam he got in his eye after at least three whiskies, the Poe who would not be denied and came up with crazy schemes that somehow always became reality.

"We have to!" He slammed his fist down on the table where they were playing cards, hard enough to rattle the glasses. "The First Order will-"

"-always find its way home," they interrupted in chorus and finished for him.

"Alright, alright," Cowboy drawled, adjusting the cards he held fanned in his hand. He pursed his lips around his smoke to inhale, then let the smoke seep out his nose without ever touching the cigarette. "I'm with ya. My missus won't like it, but I reckon I don't like me too well anyway, so screw her."

It was Cowboy's wife who had sent the first photos, she of the glorious pert ass and tits covered only by her apron. She had been painted lovingly on the nose of one of their bombers and dubbed Ol' Bess.

In truth, Bess was neither old nor cranky to hear Cowboy tell it: she was a fast-talking, hard-riding, fireball of a young woman who had set her sights on Cowboy when she was 15 and he was 18, working in the oil fields west of her daddy's ranch.

A slight pause ruled the table while they gauged if Cowboy was joking before Scavenger ventured, "I'll screw her if you won't."

Cowboy shot him a glare that had them looking between the two men like a heated tennis match until a smile began to curl the corners of his eyes.

"Dream on!" Cowboy threw down aces and they all groaned at their defeat. "That's the one thing she does like about me!"

They were in a celebratory mood of sorts: Japan had finally surrendered following two bomb drops that had leveled entire cities. Their side of the war finally caught up with Europe, and while they hadn't gotten the order yet, they knew their time together was limited. Already they were back aboard the _Finalizer_ , gathering units and equipment from bases scattered all over the South Pacific.

Of course Dameron would know exactly which seaman moonlighted as a tattooist, a man who kept taking infuriating pauses to prissily tap the ash from the cigarette he clamped between his lips into an empty tin can, as if that mattered when he was exacting a slow, murderous torture on them.

Ben was sweating beneath his undershirt, though whether from the interminable heat below deck, the drink, or straight nerves as he watched Poe grimace his way through the ordeal, he wasn't sure. Rivulets of sweat ran down Dameron's temples from beneath his thick, black hair, and he alternated between biting on his lips and blowing lungful of breath out as the man hunched over him, etching the symbol onto his chest. The blood raised by the needle was wiped away, the damp rag growing red with the evidence of the man's suffering, but the pattern emerged with more clarity with every swipe.

First, the outline: a hexagon rendered as a simple line. Next, a circle inside it. Ben didn't say anything when he noticed the circle on Poe's chest looked a bit lopsided.

The excruciating part was the diagonal points jutting into the center of the circle. Gold Leader had drawn it in the edge of his notebook in a briefing before Corregidor, and Poe had taken a shine to it.

"Compass," Gold Leader shrugged. There were far more directionals than the eight on a standard nav unit, evidence of his boredom as they'd listened to the brass repeat the same information over and over again. He'd almost filled the circle until no more space was left inside its boundary.

The seaman drew the outline of each of the points, then filled each with ink. Poe had to take a break, get up and walk around to endure the continuous pain. He looked as though he regretted his suggestion now.

Ben took another slug of whiskey before stripping from his damp shirt and lying down to submit to the torture himself. He crooked his elbow behind his head and found a point to stare at overhead. His eyes couldn't quite focus after the amount of drink they'd had and he began to feel slightly seasick with the way his eyes wanted to track away from where he tried to look.

The first few minutes weren't that bad. The pain was superficial, like the time he got stung on the leg by a couple wasps in the woods as a boy. He closed his eyes and pictured his mother's face in the study. He was at least as drunk now as he'd been that night. He felt a perverse thrill at the thought of her seeing this tattoo; there was no way she would approve. People in her world didn't do these things to themselves.

His father… Han would understand. Probably so would Uncle Luke.

"You doing okay, kid?" The seaman paused to wipe his chest and Ben nodded without opening his eyes. "Alright, I don't want you passing out on me, you hear?"

"I'm alright," Ben confirmed. The pain was mounting and growing, a hot ember that spread out from the immediate area where the man was scratching at him up to his shoulder, his solar plexus, and down the side of his ribs. What had felt like a sting was beginning to feel raw, like an open wound. He had never had a major injury.

"You in there, Teach?"

Ben opened his eyes to see Dameron staring at him, upside down. A drop of sweat rolled off Poe's cheek and landed on his neck. Poe held a damp rag to his own bare chest to absorb the remaining blood that leached from his skin.

"I'm good," he replied, trying not to grimace as the sensation made him think of an iron being pressed to damp clothes, the steam escaping from under the corners of the tool. The man straightened up from him and stood to stretch his arms and back. Ben raised his head and for a split second, he thought it was over.

The seaman wiped his brow and sat heavily back down on his stool. Ben let his head rest back and swore silently at letting Dameron talk them into this.

He wondered what Rey might say about this. His debauched letter of February had gone unanswered, as had the subsequent ones. He wondered how he would find her, once they made it back home. There were times when he considered simply returning to Indiana, to the life he had known, and leaving her to forge ahead without him.

It seemed the ultimate act of cowardice and yet… It had been so long since she had written. Who was to say she might not have done the same? Their time together had been so brief, it was like a fever dream. Were it not for her photos, he might have believed he had dreamt her: a beautiful girl who loved him without knowing him, one who had opened her heart and made him promises and taken him into her bed without certainty of his return. She could live happily in his memory that way if he never saw her again.

Ben gritted his teeth as the pain on his chest began to edge towards being slashed with a razor blade repeatedly in the same spot.

"Take it easy, kid," the seaman placed a hand on his forearm. "You're almost there."

* * *

 _September 2, 1945_

The line wound down the hallway and out onto the ramp up the side of the building by the time he located the telegraph office at the tiny base where they'd stopped to refuel and pick up another few battalions headed back stateside.

A heavy-set woman sat sweating through her dress at the machine when he reached the counter. Her thick black hair was woven back in a bun on the nape of her neck, and streaks of grey showed at her temples.

"Card." She held out her hand for his slip without looking at him.

He placed it in her hand. It had been an hourlong wait and he had agonized over every word. In the end, he had elected simplicity.

"This all? Family?"

Ben shook his head. "Just my wife."

She made no further comment as she began typing his message. The strokes of the keys were hypnotic.

 _USS Finalizer en route to Honolulu._

 _ETA September 22 in San Francisco USA._

 _I love you._

 _BS._

"You sure that's it?" She finally looked up at him, her fingers hovering over the keyboard.

He hesitated. "Should there be more?"

"It's whatever you want, son," she said, somewhat more gently. "Just making sure."

He nodded and tried to ignore the impatient looks from the men immediately behind him in line as he considered. Some of them held three or even four cards for her to transcribe.

"No, that'll do it." He forced himself to smile at the woman. "Thanks."

"Next," she called, looking over her shoulder past him to the next man.

* * *

 _September 22, 1945_

 _San Francisco_

The edge of the fog bank lay well off the shoreline, but a brisk breeze off the ocean still whipped them as they stood above deck looking for land.

A cheer went up from the men on deck when they spotted the Golden Gate Bridge, opened less than ten years earlier to mark the mouth of the bay. Its orange paint appeared brighter and brighter until suddenly, they were sailing under it once more.

Docking took an eternity, especially after they spotted the crowd gathered to meet them at Fort Mason. Ben descended the gangway one half-step at a time, his duffle bag slung over his shoulder.

All around him men were finding their families. Some had brought three generations to the dock, squashing a babe in arms between them as they hugged grandparents and cried tears of relief on their spouse's shoulder. Others dropped their bags unceremoniously to twine around their sweethearts. Ben marveled at the size of the crowd, but the longer he walked in circles, the higher the tide of disappointment rose in him. He didn't spot her anywhere.

A twin feeling swelled to meet his anxiety, one of resentment that was quickly replaced with resolve. If he could not find her, he knew what he had to do. He couldn't run away forever.

Foolishly, he knew he might be looking for a different version of Rey than the one he'd left behind. Might she her hair be longer, or shorter? Would she have grown more rounded from the slender, practically boyish girl he'd known? He paused for a moment to hitch his belongings higher on his shoulder and the thought dawned that perhaps, he should be looking for _two_ people.

Rey, and…

He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. Their child would be two by now, a small person who could walk and talk for itself.

Ben shook his head at himself. It didn't make sense. Her photos showed no signs of her being pregnant, and they had been taken well past the point at which a woman could hide such a thing. Especially not given the state of her clothing.

He started forwards again, retracing the circle he'd already made, dodging smaller people and children and even a few dogs on leashes panting at their masters' ankles. Being taller was normally an advantage, but now that he kept bumping into shorter individuals and apologizing, and he found him shrinking in on himself, trying to make himself as small as possible to thread through the crowd.

He was just turning away from apologizing to an elderly woman who spoke little English that he'd smashed into when he stopped in his tracks.

A woman stood directly ahead of him with her back turned. She wore a knee-length navy dress, very similar to the one Ben recalled Rey wearing when she'd seen him off. The woman raised her hand and shielded her eyes from the sun, and the angle of her elbow looked just like Rey's as she'd done so on the boardwalk by the ocean. She stood with one leg crossed over the other, twisting a bit side-to-side.

Ben stood still, so still. It was _her_.

She was alone, and just as lithe as he remembered. His heart pounded and he felt frozen. If she didn't turn, didn't walk back to him, he had a chance to slip away in the crowd and she might not ever find him.

Someone bumped him from behind and it jolted him out of his thoughts of desertion.

"Rey?!" He called her name.

The woman turned, and her expression went from a slight scowl to surprise to recognition in an instant.

"Ben!" Her voice was high-pitched with excitement and she sprinted towards him. He didn't have time to put down his bag before she leapt up at him, and he caught her one-armed around the waist, crushing her to him as her arms threaded around his neck. His bag hit the pavement with a soft thump and he squeezed her to him with both arms. She was fairly tall, but he held her up so that they were nearly eye-level with one another, her toes scraping the ground and bumping his shins.

The look in her eye matched the one he remembered from the beach and she babbled, "Oh my God, you're home, I missed you so bad-"

Words failed him and he captured her lips, silencing her torrent but opening his mouth as if it could be delivered directly to him by her tongue that immediately met his, warm and eager and so deliciously alive. His misgivings went quiet and he could feel her heart pounding through her ribs against his own. Heat was already licking down his lower belly just from the sensation of her lips on his, and he stuffed down the obscene thought of pulling her into an alleyway and hiking up her dress when a familiar voice interrupted them.

"Hey Skywalker!" It was Poe. "You gonna introduce me to your lady?"

He broke their kiss and placed Rey down once again. Before he could answer, Dameron had thrust forward his hand in greeting.

"Poe Dameron- Ben's told me a lot about you. It's a pleasure."

Rey looked at him as though waiting for permission before slowly offering her hand in return. "Reynata Solo," she pronounced his name cautiously, and Ben wondered if she'd been using her maiden name while he was gone. "Welcome home." A swell of possessive pride rippled through him to hear her use his name instead.

She had the decency to blush when Poe pressed his lips to the back of her hand and murmured a compliment to Ben. It was unbearable to watch Poe flirt with her in front of him.

Ben cleared his throat and rasped, "Alright, cut it out, you old smoothie. Are you waiting for someone?"

"I'm meeting my someone elsewhere," Dameron said mysteriously. "In fact, I should probably head out that way. Keep in touch, you hear?"

They exchanged pleasantries and watched as Dameron set out alone from the dock, up the hill towards the city. Rey brushed her fingers on his forearm and Ben turned back to her to draw her close to him once more. "It's so good to see you, Rey. I thought about you constantly."

Her eyes flicked downwards, as if she were embarrassed by his naked sentiment. She didn't need to know what kinds of things he'd thought about her.

"Are you ready to get home?" She asked like he might want to linger here in limbo forever. He wanted no such thing, not after two years of wondering if he'd ever see a home of any kind again.

"So ready," he confirmed. "I can't wait to meet your roommates."

"C'mon then," she replied, throwing his flight jacket over her shoulder and tugging him with one hand threaded through his.

They set off towards the city, hand in hand. The clock on the Ferry Building struck 12:30, and he was home.

* * *

 **~The Sky's a Blackboard~**

* * *

A/N: Hello, lovelies! Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoyed TSAB! Comments/feedback are life. I originally planned this as a lengthier fic (ca 30K words), but tbqh, the lukewarm readership this got coupled with RL stuff kinda took the wind out of my sails to write it.

The title of this fic is taken from the jazz standard _Teach Me Tonight_. While it wasn't written until the early 1950's, the lyrics are toooo Reylo to be believed.


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